Burn Pile or Kindling?

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I'm not a pack rat, but to me EVERYTHING has value. My mother instilled in me not to waste.

I had stored a 2x12, in my basement shop in Bedford, that dated back to 1982. I had cut an arch out of it so the mason could use it as a guide to lay bricks to span a display window in the old B&B Printing building. Not long ago I needed a short 2x8, and after twenty-five years, that old arched piece of wood, good and seasoned, did the trick.

While our cabin was being built, much wood was thrown unto the burn pile. Bowed boards, split boards, cupped boards, bruised boards, boards too short, boards cut wrong, boards that had weathered and boards with mud on them.

Now, my option with that huge pile in Floyd was to burn it, or pay the backhoe man to burry it. Neither  option sat well with me. . . I got off my duff and made use if it.

My table saw turned into a sawmill.

For two days I dragged the usable stuff to the basement. The leftover logs, braces and other timbers I cut into 2x4s. . . It made a truckload of good lumber.

The trim that came off the boards presented a new option, kindling or burn?
If I burn the stuff, I need to reseed the grass. . . So more kindling it was.

A wheelbarrow full of small stuff.

How much need does a man have for kindling? This pile, still at the edge of the woods, got to be brought under cover before winter.

In the winters of 1944-45-46-47-48-49, with that pile, we could have stayed up in the evenings a little longer, instead of having to crawl into bed to keep from freezing to death.

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